The maps in Revelations are spectacular. Inspired by Middle Eastern and European architecture, they create complex and beautiful playgrounds to hide, stalk, and slay in. Some are even based on real places, like the island-castle Mount Saint-Michel. Mount Saint-Michel is an ancient abbey built on the coast of France. The abbey has existed there for more than a thousand years and, judging by the pictures I could find, is staggeringly gorgeous. It’s also one of the most hated maps in Revelations.
After the jump: death from above Continue reading →
Yomi is a Japanese term that’s been appropriated by some gaming communities to mean “reading the mind of the opponent”. Basically, it refers to when you do something because you suspect the other player will do something. Think he’s building Shermans? Respond with Pak-40s. Is he going to jump? Ready that uppercut. Is your boss about to come into your office? Minimize this window. That’s yomi. Yomi is at the heart of some of the most satisfying competitive experiences. When your prediction about your opponent and his actions match up perfectly, it feels like winning twice.
After the jump: Mind games Continue reading →
Being assigned a target in Revelations is kind of what I imagine an arranged marriage is like. You get nothing more than a picture and a name, and you know that eventually you two will meet and it will be kind of awkward and hopefully there will be penetration. If things go wrong maybe your target will bop you on the head and run away.
After the jump: Uh, moving right along… Continue reading →
There’s a tense, deep, and addictive stealth game in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, but you won’t find it in the single-player campaign. It’s tucked away in the multiplayer mode, an addition that sounded so tacked-on I never tried it when it first appeared in the previous game, Brotherhood. For me, Assassin’s Creed was strictly a single-player game: the bizarre, time-jumping story of Desmond Miles and his ancestors’ battle against Templars, or aliens, or something. Assassin’s Creed multiplayer? Probably just an excuse to sell some DLC.
After the jump: Desmond who? Continue reading →
When I started writing this game diary, I was playing Marvel vs Capcom 3. But now, I’m playing Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. It’s better because it’s, well, ultimate-er. There’s a handful of new characters, a few tweaks to various characters’ moves lists, and even a fancy new game mode courtesy of the free Heroes and Heralds DLC. For these modest improvements, I got to pay Capcom an additional $40. These days, you hear a lot about game companies with consumer unfriendly practices, like online passes or launch day DLC. But I really don’t mind giving Capcom a little extra money for another disc. $40 for 12 new characters isn’t really that bad a rate, and for my trouble, I also get the assurance that there’s no userbase fragmentation: all Ultimate MvC3 players are going to have all the characters on the roster. No, it isn’t the money I mind.
After the jump: the unforgivable sin Continue reading →
This is Dante’s super. If you want to simulate playing Marvel vs Capcom 3 online, look at this picture, then wait 5 seconds before clicking through to the rest of the article.
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Ok, now wasn’t that fun?
After the jump: your online MvC3 primer Continue reading →
A super jump in Marvel vs Capcom 3 is accomplished by tapping the joystick down before jumping normally. Done properly, it launches you flying into the air, scrolling the screen upwards to follow you. The rules change a little in the air. All your normal attacks have different animations. Some special moves will still work, most won’t, and some new ones become available. And of course, you’re always falling. In many fighting games, it isn’t possible to block while jumping, leaving you particularly vulnerable. In Marvel vs Capcom 3, air-blocking is allowed. Combined with the super-jump, it’s possible to spend a lot more time in the air, a fitting place for the Marvel super heroes. Air blocking is actually one of the signature features of the Versus series. And it all starts with a super jump. But I couldn’t do it.
After the jump, I’m a bad carpenter Continue reading →
Trish has um, ample, uh, options at any given time. In the air, she has uh, plunging, er, attacks to strike from above, and due to her mobility and speed, she has, uh, generous timing on her combos.
Whew. I made it all the way to the jump without mentioning her breasts.
Damn it!
After the jump, speed kills Continue reading →
Kick it. Kick it. Kick it.
There isn’t any character more associated with the Street Fighter franchise, and by extension Capcom, than Ryu. In a way, he provides the baseline for how the game is played and discussed. The quarter-circle forward is referred to as the “fireball” motion. The forward, down, down-forward motion is usually shorthanded to “Dragon Punch”. Ryu is the archetypical Capcom character. Above, you can see him engaged in the archetypical Marvel vs Capcom 3 activity.
Kicking. For all that Marvel vs Capcom 3 appears to be a game about fireballs, laser beams, and world ending explosions, at its core it’s a game about low kicks.
After the jump: guessing games Continue reading →
“After you land, immediately down, down special, cancel with special and — boom! — You’re nine frames up.”
My friend Mike is sitting on the couch beside me while I kill some time in training mode. On “boom”, he slaps the back of his hand into his palm, for emphasis. Mike’s generally quite a bit better than I am at fighting games. He knows the jargon and has a group of dedicated players he talks shop with. He has a big honking arcade stick, and will bring it with him when he knows he’s going to be playing. I always enjoy discussing games with him, but I usually understand, on average, about 60% of what he’s saying.
“If you finish her air combo with her butt splash, you can hit special right when you hit them on the ground. You’ll whiff her tag-out attack just as you hit the ground, so you’ll get the recovery frames and can combo into her super.”
After the jump, maybe you can Continue reading →
The fantastic thing about Marvel vs Capcom 3 is that it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Well, that can be said about a lot of fighting games, but Marvel vs Capcom isn’t supposed to. For example, above we can see a dog, who is also the Goddess of the Sun, fighting a giant mutant-killing robot using a rope made of flowers.
I’ll just let that sink in.
After the jump: origin stories Continue reading →
Marvel vs Capcom 2 was a big part of my life in high school. I grew up in a town with a vibrant arcade culture, and as a gaming and comic nerd, I’d followed Marvel’s versus series since X-men: Children of the Atom. So when the 3rd installment of the series was announced, I was understandably excited. But it’s been over 10 years since the last game came out, and probably 6 years since I last put away my Dreamcast and my well-worn copy of MvC2. So, I’m understandably a different person now. In that time, I graduated from college, got married, pursued careers in 2 different industries, and have a real, grown up job at a real, grown up company. So, I figured I’d pick it up for a little multi-player with friends for old time’s sake, and that it’d quickly settle down next to Rock Band in my pile of games that only get pulled out for company.
After the jump: Why does that match count say 792-1242? Continue reading →
That’s a meteor about to land on the supplies I have to defend. I have to deflect it with my attacks, while also keeping an eye out for monsters. I basically punch it away. The mission ends after I’ve endured 100 meteors. Yep, 100 meteors. As I play this mission, I think of Dane Cook’s bit about bees: “I would punch every bee in the face”. So there’s me, punching every meteor in the face. Well, not every meteor. Just the ones that dare to come near my supplies.
After the jump, things to do when you’re not punching meteors Continue reading →
It’s a bit strange to come from meticulously hand-crafted 2D exploration games like Waking Mars and Fez into the procedurally generated infinite expanse of A Valley Without Wind, another 2D exploration game which is available today directly from publisher Arcen Games or from a digital distributor near you. For one thing, A Valley Without Wind is very combat based. You can hardly walk the length of a screen without blasting something. Two or three somethings, more likely. This is a very actiony game. Consider hooking up your 360 controller.
Which doesn’t mean there’s less exploration. There might be a lot of blasting, but that in no way reduces the emphasis on exploration. So much geography!
After the jump, finding your way through infinity Continue reading →
A few buildings in Modern Times are interesting, but they don’t share a common purpose. Two of them are prominent in the above screenshot: the business center in the foreground and the diamond cathedral to its right. These gleaming glass and chrome structures nicely symbolize both the good and the bad of the Modern Times expansion–they’re bright, they’re useful, and they’re powerful, but do they really belong on Tropico?
After the jump: they paved paradise and put up a business center Continue reading →
